Kaminsky Backs Up Pole Position with Solid Third-Place Effort in Round Five of 2019 Season

Brownsburg, Ind. – The Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Series drivers and teams switched gears from road courses to its only oval race of the year, the Cooper Tires Freedom 75 at the 0.686-mile Lucas Oil Raceway.

Heading into Round 5, Pabst Racing showcased promise with a strong effort in the series test on May 13. Yuven Sundaramoorthy, Colin Kaminsky, and Hunter McElrea logged the second, third, and fifth fastest cumulative times.

Certainly, Pabst Racing backed up their testing efforts with a strong pre-qualifying practice, as Kaminsky, Sundaramoorthy, and McElrea respectively posted the fourth, fifth, and seventh times. Despite Kaminsky hitting the Turn One wall in this session, his No. 23 crew repaired his fast car in time before qualifying.

Although it was quite a hectic turnaround, Kaminsky showcased his confidence by earning pole position, the first of the season for the Joliet, Ill. native as well as for the team. Meanwhile, Sundaramoorthy and Bruna Tomaselli ranked 13th and 14th while McElrea placed 19th after grazing the wall and cutting his qualifying session short.

With teams working on race set-up in the final practice round, Sundaramoorthy tallied the fastest time with McElrea (fifth), Kaminsky (14th), and Tomaselli (17th) just within four tenths of his effort.

Once the green flag unfurled for Round 5 of the year, Kaminsky fell back to second, where he would run for the balance of the race as he kept pace with the leaders. As the lead lap drivers worked their way through traffic, Tomaselli was in an intense battle for position.

Driving into Turn One, a corner requiring finesse and patience, Tomaselli was swept up in a multi-car accident on Lap 43 that ended her race, ultimately placing 19th.

Following a full-course yellow on Lap 61, Kaminsky, who dueled eventual race winner Cameron Shields in the waning laps, placed third, scoring his first podium finish of the season.

While Kaminsky led the efforts for Pabst Racing, McElrea overcame a tough qualifying outing to finish 11th while Sundaramoorthy took 12th. Following the race, Kaminsky reflected on the overall stellar effort by his team.

“Today was pretty good as we started on the pole,” Kaminsky said. “We couldn’t quite hold it, but we had a run at the lead on a couple of late restarts. The top two raced me pretty clean. It was a really good weekend for us. We’re getting back in the points battle and made some nice improvements over some of the guys in the lead.”

As for McElrea, it was an eventful weekend in which the young driver and his team shook off a tough qualifying session.

“Unfortunately, it was not quite the weekend we hoped,” McElrea observed. “We had really good pace. Unfortunately, I tagged the wall which meant we were starting last. We recovered from P19 to P11. Not exactly what we’re looking for as we’re fighting for this championship. We’ll take it on the chin. We’re not going to go down without fighting.”

With Round 5 in the books, Pabst Racing continues to make their presence known in the championship standings with McElrea (second), Kaminsky (fourth), Tomaselli (12th), and Sundaramoorthy (13th) looking ahead to Rounds 6 and 7 of the year at the winding, 4.014-mile, 14-turn Road America road course on June 21-23, 2019.